Crealto Barbera

Crealto is the creation of husband and wife Eleonora Costa and Luigi Armanino, originally from Genoa.  In their former life, Eleonora was an audiologist and Luigi an engineer.  Looking for a change of scenery and lifestyle, and already in love with traditional Piedmontese varieties, they responded to a promising real estate ad which led them to purchase 4.5 hectares of vineyard land. The site was known as the Crè Alto (Crè is Piedmontese dialect for chalk).  The estate is certified organic and all harvesting is done by hand. Since 2013, Crealto has declassified their wines in order to avoid the appellation’s tasting panel from interfering in their process. 100% Barbera from a clay and limestone-gypsum vineyard with 20 year old vines, densely planted at 5000 plants per hectare. Macerations lasted 3 weeks. Aged 8 months in stainless steel and 2-3 months in bottle, so it is not released until almost a year after harvest.